By five til noon, the Patterson Auditorium at Alamance Community College was maybe three-fourths full, even though the tickets for the event were supposedly sold out.
We got a quick introduction, said the pledge, and had a prayer. Questions were allowed and chosen by ticket drawing. Representative Walker assured us there was no filtering on questions, and that did prove to be the case as the session went on.
He was battered by the first question from a woman who scolded him for voting on the AHCA before the CBO could score it and without input from constituents. His answers throughout the town hall regarding the AHCA consistently returned to lauding the removal of the individual mandate as his talking point. He suggested that the “freedom” of not being forced to buy health insurance was more important than 23 million people losing access to coverage. He also made several attempts to question the legitimacy and accuracy of CBO scoring, while he threw out numbers and statistics that weren’t really relevant in order to provide the long, rambling guise of an “answer”.
Phil from Sustainable Alamance asked him about Jeff Sessions’ comments and policy setbacks regarding mass incarceration. Rep Walker’s response was somewhat vague and neutral, but he did at least pay lip service to a stance of compassion. He mentioned twice the “Second Chance Act”, which he does support, and also mentioned Tennessee being one of the states to “ban the box” which at least showed that this issue is on his radar.
When questioned next about the rampant lies coming out of Washington, at the rate of 4.9 per day, and as a Christian how he feels about the lies, he was at first somewhat incredulous at the statistic given, but rapidly moved on to a neutral and vague non-answer. He asked for any specific example of a lie from the president which he could address, but then gave what he referred to as a “blanket answer”: if there are lies coming from the top, he and his colleagues will address them.
Dana Courtney, representing the Alamance County NAACP, had the opportunity to ask a question. She first asked why the room was not full when she knew people were being turned away. (See above composite photo of the empty seats in back.) Dana moved on to address her main issue, being the creation of the Commission on Election Integrity, which is being headed up by Mike Pence. She acknowledged that on its surface, election integrity is a crucial element to our society, and we do not want fraud on any level. However, she asked, will the Commission also look at voter disenfranchisement rather than simply focusing on “revving up” the voter fraud myth?
Rep. Walker quickly reached for an anecdotal story about helping to restore a voting location at North Carolina A&T, and made a very mild statement indicating that the occurrences of voter fraud are perhaps somewhat overblown at times. He added that he’s dedicated to educating young voters and keeping them active in the political process, and from the legislative side he promised to watch for “overreach” regarding the new Commission. When Dana asked about restoring the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he gave a quick, dismissive “we’ll look into it” kind of response.
Maryann from Graham asked how he can call himself “pro-life” when his voting record suggests that the life of the mother is not as important as the life of the child. The pro-life ladies in the room went nuts with approval when he stated his Proud Pro-Life stance. But the question was not about abortion as much as it was about funding family planning services and providing what mothers need to take care of children after they are born. There was some back and forth about what the actual question was, but between the loud ladies seated directly behind me repeatedly shouting that Babies Have Rights Too and their phones going off loudly, almost comically at the same time, I didn’t gather much of an answer besides his Proud Pro-Life Stance.
He got a softball question about tax reform, and went into a talking-point speech about reducing the number of tax brackets from seven to three, and reducing the NC corporate rate.
A man representing Citizens Climate Lobby asked a very carefully worded question about support for legislation to reduce greenhouse gases. The terms stated were for “win-win” legislation in which emissions are reduced while stimulating the economy, with support from other Republicans. He began his answer by stating that he is not a climate change denier, but went on to immediately refute that point by stating that there’s not enough evidence to suggest how much of it is man-made. He also added that he hasn’t seen the bill, but we are decreed by God to be stewards of the earth, and that’s important to him as long as it doesn’t increase tax burdens or regulations.
When asked another softball about what he would do to protect the first amendment specifically in freedom of speech and religion, he referred to the First Amendment Defense Act which allows political speech from churches as non-profit organizations. The crowd became loud at this point and the rest of the answer was not audible, but short.
A representative of Alamance Republican Women first addressed the “hate” in the room and whined about how the other side won’t let Trump be president, although her side suffered through Obama so quietly for eight long years. Then she addressed how the Russian collusion story is made up in Democrats’ heads and meant to distract the legislative and executive from handling the country’s business. She asked what he would do to “push back” against this distraction.
Rep. Walker first, admirably, disagreed that the room was full of hate. “I don’t think these people hate me, even if they don’t agree with me.” Then he went on to say that he appreciated Trump for installing respectable people in powerful positions within his administration and the Supreme court. He mentioned Mueller as a widely respected appointee for the post of Special Counsel, and said he does want to let him do his job. He agreed that Russia is a distraction from the other issues we face as a country and looks forward to a speedy conclusion.
Even as we were a few minutes over, Rep. Walker chose to take a question from a man in the audience whose number was not drawn. He introduced himself as CEO of R Watch (written phonetically — more info needed on this!), explaining that his company has created a social media platform for improvement of the police and community relationship. He asked how Rep. Walker would support such an endeavor.
The answer started strong with Rep. Walker emphasizing how important the word “relationship” is in this context. “We need to have honest conversations” and he is involved in some of those conversations with Black church leaders in the community.
We concluded the town hall meeting and dispersed.